Trick of the Eyes
by Rydd Rider
Summary: In every town the Rangers go to, there are always those awry common folk, claiming that Rangers are black magicians. But then, those are just rumors... Aren't they? My ninja brother inspired me, I don't know why I rated it and R&R pretty please!
1. Thoughts of Power

**This fanfic takes place after the first book, I guess, but before the second. All that matters is that Will's still a newby apprentice and hasn't been kidnapped and taken to Skandia.**

**Just to get this straight, the credit for this idea goes to my ninja brother. He was talking about Ranger's Apprentice and said something like, "There should be real magic in that series, because everyone already thinks that the Rangers are black magicians." Which totally had me rushing off to jot down this new idea. ^_^ Enjoy… I hope.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ranger's Apprentice. Get it, got it? Good.**

Halt shivered. It was cold here, where they had made their camp. He and Will were on a short trip, and with winter in the air, Halt's Ranger cloak wasn't enough to keep him warm during his watch at night. He glanced over at where Will was sleeping. The boy's unmanageable hair was ruffled from the cowl of his cloak. He had himself wrapped tightly in his blankets, and Halt felt a flash of envy at how warm he looked, sleeping in snug blankets right next to the still-warm coals from their dinner fire. The older Ranger shivered again.

Halt felt like he was going to freeze. He could probably… No, Will still didn't know. Doing anything that brought suspicion would bring unwanted questions. He glanced sideways at Will again. He was deep in sleep. He wouldn't even see. Halt gritted his teeth and forced his mind away from that line of thought. Or, at least, he tried to.

An extra cold gust of wind blew through his cloak and Halt shuddered violently. He seriously needed some warmth. He sighed softly, then looked over at Will for the third time in as many minutes, just for absolute confirmation that he was asleep. He was.

Halt reached into the back of his mind carefully, summoning up what little Power he needed at the moment. He thought of what he needed that Power to be, being specific. He didn't want to deal with mistakes and their repercussions at the moment. He felt the heat rise up in his throat and he cupped his hands in front of his mouth. He breathed out slowly through his teeth, the soft, thin thread of flames flickering out between his lips into his hands. The heat coated his palms and fingers. He kept blowing into his cupped hands until the heat had layered up to almost an inch thick.

_That should be good enough,_ he thought. He smeared the heat onto his arms, savoring the warmth as it touched his cold arms. Satisfied for the moment, he covered himself back in his Ranger cloak and resumed his watch.

Eleven minutes later, the heat had dissipated and he was cold again.

He growled lowly in frustration. _Eleven minutes? It should have lasted fifteen. _But then, the Power of fire wasn't one of his strongest suits. He was much better with the Powers of shadow and earth. Unfortunately, they didn't much help one stay warm on a cold night. Unlike Halt, Gilan probably could have kept his heat going for a full twenty minutes.

He glanced over at Will. Still peacefully sleeping. So trusting, so innocent. _And someday very soon I'll have to break that innocence. Unless he leaves soon and unexpectedly._ But Halt knew that he wouldn't. He already had the bronze Oakleaf, and he thought that he belonged firmly in the Ranger Corps. Halt felt a twinge of guilt. Technically, he shouldn't have given the bronze pendant to his apprentice yet. He'd said that he didn't think anyone in the Corps would argue with him after the Kalkara, but in truth, quite a few of them would have. It was the mostly unspoken but very much recognized top rule of having an apprentice. If they couldn't handle the truth, they couldn't handle the Oakleaf. Halt hadn't yet tested Will with the truth.

Rumors flew around the common folk, and among a few of the more ignorant nobility as well, that the Rangers were black magicians. Which they weren't.

They were just normal Magicians.

Nearly a quarter of perspective apprentices couldn't accept the fact that the Rangers could use the Powers. They were sworn to secrecy and let go. The Corps wasn't a place for anyone who feared the usage of the Powers. Some just ran and avoided all other Rangers at all costs. Some tried to get away with spreading the truth. If that was the case, then a Ranger would pay them a visit. They generally shut up after that, though this breach of security is what initially started the whisperings of black magic. In fact, in one very extreme case a little over eight years ago, the Ranger Corps had actually been forced to kill an apprentice with a major case of denial. It was the first and only time so far in one hundred and fifty years of history that it had happened in the Corps.

Halt sighed and glanced at Will yet again. How would he take it? Would he be one of the ones who ran? Or would he stay to become a Ranger? It was Gilan's apprenticeship all over again. In the days before he had told the lanky Ranger, Halt had been abnormally distraught, hoping nearly frantically that his apprentice could accept it. Needless to say, he had. Will had a similar personality, so Halt thought it was likely that he could accept the truth of the Powers. However, that didn't stop Halt from sweating over it.

He shivered.

Well, 'sweating' was a purely metaphorical term.

Halt pushed it all out of his mind and concentrated solely on his watch. With the thoughts out of his head, however, he felt the cold more keen to his body. He checked briefly to ensure that Will was still out cold, then drew upon the Power of fire to warm himself again.

**That chapter kind of stuttered to a sudden halt… But I guess it wasn't really a chapter, it was basically just an introduction to get you a little used to the whole Power thingy. A prologue, I guess.**

**Okay, I promise that I WILL NOT update until I get at least three or more reviews saying that I should continue. I don't even have the whole plot line for this yet and I don't want to waste the brain power thinking about it if no one actually wants to read this. This just sprouted from one of my ninja brother's crazy ideas, so I'm not that committed to it. I've also got a couple other random ideas floating around in my head, so if I don't do this fanfic I'll just move on to the next one. So, pretty please review.**

**-Rydd Rider**


	2. Talk of Magic

**Hurah! I got enough reviews to continue! Okay, now I'll—**

**Wait a second. My hands are orange… what the heck? Oh yeah, I peeling carrots for dinner earlier… *slaps forehead* Sorry, I forgot. Moving on.**

**Okay, NOW I'll get on with the chapter, even though I haven't discovered the entire plot line yet. It'll come when it comes, I guess.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ranger's Apprentice.**

Halt leaned back in his favorite chair by the fireplace. Will was in his room at the moment, and Halt's stomach was tied up in a knot. He couldn't postpone it any longer. Today, Will could either accept or deny his apprenticeship to, for lack of a better word, a sorcerer.

Halt dropped his hand to where it was shadowed by his chair. He reached into his mind for just a touch of the Power and toyed with the shadows, nudging and pulling them out of shape and then letting them go and feeling them flow back into their natural form. He did it several times. It wasn't a nervous habit, he told himself. He wasn't nervous. However, while Halt could lie quite convincingly to other people, his bluffing skills were null and void when it came to himself.

Will walked into the room that Halt was in. Halt pulled his hand from the shadows, glancing down quickly to make sure no residual shadows were sticking to his hand. That would be awkward until Halt had a chance to fully explain the Powers.

"Will." Will stopped walking towards the door and turned toward Halt. Halt gestured with a nod of his head to a chair facing his. Will was slightly confused, but went and sat down.

"I thought I was practicing archery this afternoon," he said.

"No," Halt said, "you'll be learning a different kind of lesson today."

The boy's shoulders slumped. "Is it geography again?" Halt suppressed a grin.

"Hardly." He paused for a moment, fishing around for a place to start this conversation. "You know all those rumors among the common folk about Rangers, don't you?"

Will was interested at this strange topic. "You mean all those people who say that Rangers are black magicians? Even though we're not?"

"You're mostly right."

"Mostly? What part did I miss?" Will was getting more confused by each sentence.

"We're not exactly _black _magicians. We're not really white ones either, though."

Will was beginning to get very unsure of himself. His mentor's cryptic answers weren't making any sense. "You're not magicians at all," he said slowly.

Halt fixed his apprentice with a steady stare. "What makes you say that?"

Will froze as he realized what his mentor was implying. He swallowed. "You're joking," he said quietly. "You're pulling my leg. You're _not _serious." Nervousness was creeping into his voice. "You're a magician?"

Halt seemed to think about that for a moment. "That's what the common folk like to call us, though we call ourselves something different."

"What?"

A hint of a smile touched the corner of Halt's mouth. "Rangers."

Will blinked. "That means Gilan's one too, doesn't it. And same with Crowley."

Halt nodded.

Will eyed him uncertainly. "Can you show me what your… _magic_ does?"

Halt held his relief at bay. Curiosity did not mean acceptance. Halt was happy to comply anyway. He wasn't going to do anything with the Power of shadow at the moment, as that would likely just serve to alarm the boy. He decided to use fire. He reached into his mind to draw on the Power of fire, then rubbed his thumb across the tip of his pointer finger, quickly and firmly, as if striking a flint. Nothing. He drew on a little more of the Power and rubbed his finger again, and was rewarded with a spark. Almost immediately, there was a small, flickering candle-flame atop his fingertip.

Halt looked at Will, who was staring wide-eyed at the small flame. The boy leaned in a little closer, examining it. Halt's miniature blaze ran out; after all, fire wasn't his strongest suit. Will looked up at Halt, not with fear or horror, Halt was glad to see, but with wonder. Then he said the five words Halt had hoped to hear.

"Can you teach me how?" Will whispered.

With a slight smile on his face, Halt nodded.

**Once again, a super short chapter. Sorry! I promise the next chapter will be longer. I hope it won't take very long, even though I'm still thinking about how the whole Power stuff actually happens… I've been combining a couple different ways on how to use magic I've read in different fantasy books, but I might change it later.**

**I haven't really mentioned all seven Powers yet, though I've said something of I think three, but I'll get around to them next chapter. That's when Will's "magic" training starts.**

**Every time I write this, I keep thinking "Sorcerer's Apprentice," which I really want to see. It looks like a pretty good movie… Anyway, I'll update soon… But only if you review! ^_^**

**-Rydd Rider**


	3. Training in Shadows

**Yet another chapter… Not that I'm complaining! This is pretty fun to write.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ranger's Apprentice.**

They sat in a small, shaded clearing far into the woods around the Rangers' cabin. Will was itching to move around, but he quelled that need with a couple questions.

"Why are we sitting down? Don't we need to be standing up to do magic?"

Halt held up a hand to stop the inquiries before Will could really get going. "We're sitting down because I said so, it's called Power, not magic, no, you don't need to be standing up to use it, and _you're_ not going to use it at all without my say-so because you won't be ready until then." Halt surprised himself as he finished the extended sentence in a single breath.

Will pouted. "Then when do I get to start?"

Annoying as his apprentice's eagerness was, Halt took it as a good sign. Will apparently didn't plan to desert the Corps on the grounds that he didn't want to be around magicians. "You start," he answered his apprentice, "when I think you should." Before his apprentice could shoot off another question, he cut in, "And that would be _after_ I explain what the Power that you mistakenly call 'magic' is and how to use it."

"How long is that going to take?"

"However long it takes!" Halt growled.

Will's shoulders slumped as Halt glared at him. The apprentice looked up cautiously. "Then can we get started?" he asked timidly.

"If you shut up with those infernal questions, then yes!"

Will shut his mouth and pressed his lips together tightly, looking up at his mentor expectantly.

Halt sighed. "Finally," he muttered. He continued in a louder voice. "What you so carelessly call 'magic' is actually an assortment of several different Powers." Will looked like he was going to ask another question, but Halt silenced him with a look. "There are seven of them. Fire, earth, water, air, shadow, light, and a seventh one that I'm not going to tell you about quite yet." Will actually opened his mouth to ask why, but Halt gave him a hard glare and continued while still staring at him. "I'm not going to tell you because you will no doubt try to use it, and the seventh Power is much more dangerous than any of the others. Apprentices are not allowed to use it." In truth, it was forbidden to the entire Corps, but if Halt said that, there would certainly be another barrage of questions, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with that.

Halt eyed his apprentice. The boy looked like he was going to burst with the effort of staying silent. Halt sighed, giving in. "Alright, what have you got to say?"

"How do you use these Powers?" he said so fast that Halt blinked.

"Reach inside your head. You'll feel it."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Inside my head? How do you know I can even use these Powers? What if I can't?"

"Everyone can use them, Will. Most people just don't have enough expertise to use them, or the right teaching to. It's much easier with a mentor. Very few people can do it instinctively, and those who can are generally burned at stake for witchcraft or wizardry." At the last part, Will's eyes widened to twice their usual size.

"What!" he squeaked.

"I was joking, Will," Halt said flatly.

"Oh," he sighed, very much relieved.

Halt shook his head and muttered something about gullible apprentices. Will decided it was best if he pretended not to hear.

Halt looked around for a brief moment and then stood up.

"What are we standing up for?" Will asked, hopping perkily to his feet.

"I'm going to show you how."

"I thought you said we didn't need to stand up to work magic!"

"It's not magic, it's the Powers and we _will_ be sitting down. We're just moving!" Halt growled.

"Oh."

Halt walked to a spot about fifteen feet away and sat down again. Will walked over but stayed standing.

"What was the point of that?"

Halt didn't answer. He jerked his hand in a gesture to a spot about two feet away. Will obediently sat.

"What was the point of that?" Will repeated.

"Look at the shadows."

Will did. The spot were they had been seated before was completely shaded. The area they were now at was at the edge of the same body of shade. "Um, we're at the edge instead of the middle now. But I don't see what difference that makes," he said.

Halt looked down to where the shadowed forest floor meant the sunlit ground. Tapping into the Power of shadow, he pulled the shadows several inches out of shape. Now, rather than following the shape of the tree, it had a blob about the size of Halt's hand protruding.

Will's eyes widened.

"Now move the shadows back to their original places," Halt ordered.

Will's eyes widened even more as he looked at his mentor in alarm. "What? How do I do that?"

"Reach inside your mind for the Power of shadow and just push the shadows back."

Narrowing his eyes in concentration, Will slowly brought his hand across the abnormally shadowed ground. Nothing happened. He tried again, rubbing harder, like he was trying to get a large dark stain out of the forest floor.

"Don't rub it, Will, it's not actually part of the ground," Halt said. "You can't do this without the Power of Shadow. Concentrate on that more."

Will wasn't sure how to even reach this Power Halt kept talking about. In his mind? He was always in his own mind. Were there other places in there to look? If so, how big exactly was his mind?

He pushed his insatiable tendency for questions away for the moment and concentrated on how to get to different places within his own mind. Maybe he could just try thinking in a different way. Will didn't realize that he'd closed his eyes, or that he'd almost completely relaxed. But watching him, Halt couldn't help thinking that it looked like he'd transferred into some kind of Zen state.

A spark.

That's how it felt to Will, a sudden spark where he _felt_ what he knew he was looking for. A single spark that lit a very short fuse, causing only a momentary delay before the dam blew. The Powers came from everywhere in his mind, not just the back or the front, and congealed wherever his consciousness was at the moment.

And with his hand, he felt something solid that hadn't been there before. It hadn't just appeared; it was like his senses had finally noticed it. The odd feeling, plus the suddenness of feeling the Powers, caused him to give a strangled yelp and pull his hand from the shadows and his mind from the Powers.

His eyes shot open and he saw Halt staring at him amusedly. "What?" Will asked defensively.

Halt let out a low chuckle and shook his head. "You and Gilan both… Though I suppose it's the same for all apprentices and their masters."

Will gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

"The look on your face when you finally found the Powers was absolutely priceless."

Will crossed his arms and glared at Halt.

"And it's even funnier when you pout after I say that," Halt added with a hint of a grin on his face.

Will huffed and looked back at the shadow he was supposed to fix. He placed his hand on the edge of the misplaced blob and closed his eyes, preparing to reach for the Power of shadow. This time, as it ignited within his mind and he felt the shadows become substantial, he flinched but didn't tear away from it. He dragged his fingers toward the shade's original place and could feel the shadows ripple as they moved. He suppressed a shiver at that. When he thought he was done, he lifted his hand away but kept his eyes closed and his Power beating in a somehow familiar pulsing rhythm within him for the moment.

"That's interesting."

Will opened his eyes at the sound of Halt's voice and saw something he certainly didn't expect to see. He gave a shout of surprise and let go of the Power, consequently dropping the slightly waving stream of shadow trailing up in the air toward his hand. It plopped liquid-like back onto its home shade and flowed back into its original place, outlining the tree perfectly.

"That's one way to fix it, I suppose."

Will looked up at his mentor with wide, confused eyes. "How… I…" he stuttered.

Halt regarded his apprentice calmly. "I'm guessing that you didn't let go of the Power the first time you took your hand away." Will shook his head.

"I didn't want to. It felt… kind of familiar. Is that possible?"

Halt nodded. "It's always been there, in your head. You've probably subconsciously felt it before."

Will nodded slowly.

Halt rose from his sitting position. "Get up. There are still some things I'm going to teach you today. We're taking a walk."

* * *

They walked through the deeper parts of the forest, where the undergrowth was dense and different plants crept up the trees. There was silence. Halt was close-mouthed, as usual, and Will was still in awe of his newfound ability. Will stayed as observant as ever, though, and he noticed that, instead of walking quietly and moving the plants as little as possible to avoid detection, Halt seemed to be brushing up against the growth on purpose, like he enjoyed the feel of it stroking him.

After what seemed like eternity to Will, Halt stopped and leaned against the trunk of a tree and closed his eyes. Will opened his mouth to ask why they had stopped, but Halt terminated them before he could take the chance to ask them. "Don't even start, Will. Just listen." The apprentice obediently shut his mouth.

"You only just learned of the six Common Powers," Halt began. "You probably haven't had much time to think of what you could do with them. The more seasoned Rangers, however, have had years to think. A few of them wondered if you could manage to make an illusion to fool people. They've tried it with the Power of light and it usually worked, except for the most complicated things. They were also able to use the Power of air to make sounds such as speaking, to make the illusion a touch more believable. Then a small group had a more ambitious idea: could they make a real person?"

"Could they?" Will asked eagerly.

Halt opened an eye at the boy's verbal intrusion. "Don't interrupt." He closed his eyes again and continued. "Yes, they discovered that they could. They used the Power of earth for the flesh and bones. The Power of water was used for blood. The Powers of light and shadow for coloring. The Power of fire for body heat. The Power of air for breath. They could control the body they had created, but they didn't give it sentience, though they probably could have." He waited and was not disappointed.

"They could have? How? Why not?" Will asked, shooting off the three questions in rapid-fire succession.

"They could have used the seventh Power, the one I still refuse to tell you about, so don't even ask. It likely could have given their creation sentience, but they didn't even try to use it because it was too dangerous. There was also an additional reason. I told you it was forbidden for apprentices to use the seventh Power. Actually, it's forbidden of the entire Corps, after several… mishaps."

"Okay," Will said cautiously, "that's all fascinating and everything, but what has this got to do with anything?"

"Well, I figured you'd find it interesting, and it was a useful way of telling you not to use the seventh Power."

"Which I still don't even know what it does, so what's the point?"

"Just a warning. I am committed to tell you sometime, unfortunately, and I want it known early on that if you ever even try to use it I will do much worse than simply tan your backside. And I thought it was a neat segue into another crucial lesson." Halt paused and looked around, taking in the sights and the scents. "Do you think it's a mere coincidence that the Powers can create the same thing that the Earth did?" he said softly.

"I don't understand," Will replied truthfully.

"The Earth created the human race naturally. The Powers can create the same thing. They're similar. Do you think that's a coincidence?"

Will didn't know the answer. "Um, yes?" he tried.

Halt shook his head. "No. Or, at least, that's what we're fairly sure of. But either way, they can both create us. The Earth and the Powers do not belong to us. We belong to them. It's very easy to let the Power get away from you. Because of that, you are not allowed to practice alone. I must be watching whenever you are using the Power."

Will nodded. "I understand."

"Alright then." Halt stepped away form the tree trunk. "Let's get back to the cabin. We don't want to miss supper, now, do we?" he said, walking off into the trees.

Will grinned and followed.

* * *

About halfway to the cabin, Will had another question. "Halt?"

Halt sighed heavily but didn't respond. Will took that as a 'go ahead'.

"Since we can use magic and all, sorry I mean the Powers," he adjusted as Halt opened his mouth to correct him, "can we make things disappear?"

Halt paused his stride and gave him an odd look. "Disappear? The way the townsfolk think we make ourselves invisible?"

Will shook his head. "No, not that kind of disappear. You know, like…" He made an uncertain gesture with his hands. "Poof!"

Halt gave him a flat stare, shook his head slowly and heaved a sigh.

**By the way, peoples, that very last little conversation is thanks to thecrAYzeebard's review. I read it and just started cracking up, and I just had to stick it in here. I probably should have asked before sticking it on here. But hey, thecrAYzeebard, if you don't want that on there, PM me and I'll delete it.**

**Why did that feel like an extra disclaimer? I guess it pretty much was, though.**

**That chapter got done a lot quicker than I expected it to. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I'll just pretend it's good. ^_^**

**I'm going to be adding a couple OCs to this story (all the bad guys have to be OCs) and I'm considering making an OC good guy (or girl, still deciding) too. What do you guys think? I'm still deciding on the plot, so if I hear a good idea I'm flexible! Review please, I thank all you wonderfuls who have already reviewed the first two chapters.**

**-Rydd Rider**


	4. Fire and Earth

By the time Will woke the next morning, rubbing sleep from his eyes and pointlessly attempting to smooth out his hopelessly tousled hair, Halt was already up and preparing breakfast, having woken up at his usual ungodly hour of the morning. Halt turned from the wood-burning stove as his apprentice walked bleary-eyed into the kitchen.

"You would think that after months of the same sleep schedule, you'd be able to be halfway aware in the morning," he said dryly.

Will slumped into a chair. "Wha's the point of being aware this early?" he yawned nearly unintelligibly.

"Or halfway coherent," Halt muttered, adding on to his earlier statement.

He walked over and put a full mug of coffee in front of his apprentice. Will smiled and took a drink. "That's more like it."

"And now that you're awake you can get your lazy backside off of that chair and help me with cooking."

The statement certainly delayed Will's return to his common chipper mood.

* * *

"Today you'll be learning a bit more about yesterday afternoon's lesson," Halt announced over their meal of bacon and eggs.

"You mean the Powers?" Will asked.

Halt sighed. "That was the lesson, wasn't it?"

"Well… yes."

"Then that's what we're learning this morning."

Halt got up and went into his room. He returned a moment later with a candle. Will raised an eyebrow but lowered it again as Halt set the candle on the table and lit it with the Power of fire. Apparently this was going to be his lesson.

Halt blew out the candle. "Light it," he commanded.

"If you want it lit, why did you blow it out?" Will asked innocently.

"Just light the candle."

Will nodded and stared at the candle for a moment. He looked up Halt in quandary. "Um, how?"

Halt decided that an example would do more good than words would. He drew upon the Power of fire and rubbed his thumb across the tip of his pointer finger as if striking a flint. A small flame appeared on his fingertip. Will mimicked the action, drawing on the Powers himself, but rather than a small burst of flame, a sudden spurt of shadows erupted. Will started in surprise.

"Wrong Power, Will," Halt said with amusement. "You need fire, not shadow. Fire will feel warmer."

Will nodded. He reached for the Power again, this time looking for something else inside it. But it seemed to be all just one thing. Though he thought that perhaps one section was warmer, one cooler. One section, the section that he realized he had been using before, was darker, and there was another section that was lighter. He drew on the warmer Power and repeated his earlier action. There was a sudden, bright flash of fire in front of him and Will gave a shout, releasing the Power in alarm. The flame disappeared with it.

Halt raised both eyebrows. "You certainly enjoy doing the unexpected, don't you? First the shadows, now the fire." He looked up and huffed, "Oh, just great."

Will followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at. There was a large scorch-mark on the ceiling. The apprentice winced; he must have made it by accident when the flame flared upward. "Sorry, Halt."

Halt snorted. "At least that was all you did. Gilan nearly burned the house down the first time he tried using the Power of fire. We were in the castle for two weeks while some carpenters made repairs."

Will grinned and suppressed his laughter.

"Work on making your flame smaller when you spark."

"Spark?" Will asked. "What do you mean?"

Halt made another little flame on his fingertip using his thumb and forefinger like he had before. "That right there is the most basic move with the Power of fire. We call it sparking. When you spark, make it smaller. It only needs to be about two inches high to light the candle. Don't use as much of the Power and it'll be a bit easier."

Will nodded his understanding, dipped into the Powers and sparked again. The flame shot up to about a foot high. Concentrating, Will was able to get it down to four inches, then it hopped back up again. He tried to get it lower, but the flame leaped up and down in sporadic spurts and he couldn't keep it steady.

Halt banged on the table suddenly. Will jumped and let go of the Power. The fire snuffed out immediately.

"What was that for?"

Halt shrugged. "I wanted you to stop playing with fire for a moment. You've got other things to learn, you know. We can come back to this later." He stood and walked over to the door, pausing to wait for Will to get to his feet and follow.

"What are you going to teach me now?" Will asked as they went out the door.

"The Power of earth. No more questions."

Will reluctantly fell silent.

Master and apprentice walked through the woods, Will wondering when they were going to stop and Halt was wondering when Will was going to stop looking around like an idiot who'd never seen trees before. Finally, Halt stopped.

"Why'd we stop here?" Will asked.

"Because I said so," Halt snapped.

_But he didn't say anything, _Will thought, but wisely didn't say.

Halt knelt in the dirt. He gestured for Will to kneel as well. Halt scooped up a handful of dirt and clumped it together tightly. Holding the lump of dirt on a flat palm, he stared at it with eyes narrowed with concentration. Will could have sworn up and down that he saw the dirt shift a little in his hand. Halt suddenly switched his grip and threw it at a tree. As it connected with the trunk, rather than spattering dirt everywhere like an earthen snowball like it should have, it thunked noisily against the wood as a rock would have and dropped to the ground in one piece.

"The easiest thing to do with the Power of earth is change what the earth is. Change dirt to rock, rock to metal, metal to dirt, or anything interchanging between the three," Halt explained.

Will perked up. "You can make gold, then?"

Halt shook his head. "Not really. The more precious the metal, the harder it is to make. However, we can take a bit of gold from outside sources and change its form into that of the Oakleaf. That's how we make our pendants, yours included. Anyway, you try it now. Make sure you reach for the right Power. Have you noticed that they're paired in opposites?"

Will nodded. "A warmer one, a cooler one, a darker one, a lighter one, a firmer one and the last one is… the opposite of firm. Floppy, maybe?"

Halt gave him a withering glance. "Floppy? It's air. Well, that one's not important right now. Use the firm one, earth."

Will nodded. He copied Halt's actions, scooping up some dirt and using the Power to try to make it turn harder. Unfortunately, it didn't work. He clumped the dirt together with his hands and tried again, but even with the Power, it just wasn't happening. His shoulders slumped.

"Looks like we found your weakness," Halt said.

Will looked at him curiously. "Weakness?"

Halt nodded. "Every Ranger has a weakness and a strength. It's a Power that they're abnormally bad or good at. For example, I'm weak in fire while it's Crowley's and Gilan's strength. I have a hard time using it beyond the basic things, such as sparking. Gilan and Crowley have no such inhibitions. However, my strengths are shadow and earth, so I can use those particularly well, while Gilan fails miserably every time he tries to use earth."

"Kind of like me?"

"Don't be hard on yourself, that was your first try. Now, let's get back to the cabin."

"Why do we walk for half an hour, do one thing, then walk all the way back?" he asked while scrambling to his feet. Halt rose as well.

"It's good exercise."

"Wouldn't running be better?"

"If you want to run, go ahead."

"Um, no thanks."

There was a brief silence until Will had another question.

"Halt?"

Halt sighed heavily. "Another question?"

"You just answered a question with a question!" Will said, surprised.

"Just spit it out before I answer with violence instead," he growled.

"Um, well, with the Powers, you can feel all six of them, but you can't feel the seventh Power. Why is that?"

Halt gave him a level stare. "I'm not answering any of your questions about the seventh Power until I absolutely have to."

They lapsed into another silence until Will broke it again.

"What am I going to be doing when we get home?"

"You'll be walking toward the cabin."

"_After_ I get home," Will amended.

"You'll be practicing archery."

"Are you going to teach me more about the Powers tomorrow?"

"Everyday for the next couple weeks."

Will was satisfied with that answer.

**That was a lame ending, sorry. The next chapter will be better, but I'm going on a trip for a week and a half, so unless I get it up tomorrow, it won't be up until I get back.**

**Reviewers are awesome, so review! They give authors warm fuzzies. Unless they're flames, but you're not that mean. ^_^**

**-Rydd Rider**


	5. Accidents

**Ugh, I can't believe I forgot to say this until now… This goes along the same timeline of the second book. Because I don't want to rewrite everything from that book and stick into here, when something drastic has occurred that happened in the book, I'll just say so, since you've all already read the second book (I think) and probably don't want a repeat. Finally, I got that out of the way.**

**Anyhoo, it's been about a month or so since the last chapter. They already chased the wargals, found that Dirk dude with the false plans, yada yada yada, and this is before Will gets sent on the Celtica mission. Oh, and one more thing, I'm going to be adding a couple events in here, and the Celtica mission will be a while in coming. I have to elbow the timeline a bit to get the stuff I want in here. ^_^ Time to get started.**

Will stood in the woods behind the cabin, hoping Halt didn't come out anytime soon. He wouldn't be very happy with what Will was doing right now. He'd decided to see how big of an explosion two fireballs would make if they collided. Halt didn't even want him practicing alone, much less testing out new theories; if the grizzled Ranger came out now, the outcome would not be a happy one. Will didn't even stop to consider the fact that a fiery collision might make some noise.

He'd learned a lot in the past month and had picked up very quickly on everything Halt had taught him. Well, except the Power of earth. That was still very much his weakness. But he had so far astounded Halt in how fast he had learned to do everything else; Halt hadn't wanted to give him too big of an ego, but he'd still said that Will was getting this faster than anyone he'd heard of.

He sparked with both of his hands, manipulating the resulting flames until they moved in a spherical shape. Fireballs. Will had been surprised that Halt couldn't do this, but then, he had said that his weakness was the Power of fire. Now, all Will had to do was aim them and let them go. He was about to, until he heard an unwelcome and unexpected voice.

"What exactly do you think you're doing, Will?"

Halt angry tone was enough to break Will's concentration, but enough not, unfortunately, to make him let go of the Power of fire. At his mentor's sudden appearance, Will stumbled backwards a bit—and tripped over a root in the process. Wide eyed, he pin-wheeled his arms as he fell onto his back in the mud, the fireballs that were still burning shooting off unexpectedly.

On his back in the cold mud, Will saw one of his fireballs strike the trunk of a tree, blowing a hole in the trunk and nearly felling the tree. He closed his eyes, knowing with surety that in a few moments, Halt would be yelling at him and would most likely wind up giving Will a switching.

Strangely, Halt didn't start yelling. In fact, Will didn't hear Halt at all. Will opened one eye warily, and, sure enough, there was only empty air where Halt should have been standing.

Will sat up. "Halt?"

There wasn't an answer.

"Halt?" he called again. "Halt, come out. Where are you?" Halt wasn't anywhere, but Will knew that he would jump out when he least expected it.

Will slowly got to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his ankle. He must have sprained it when he tripped. He looked around. The tree that his fireball had hit was still smoking slightly. _Where did the other one go?_ he wondered._ There were two fireballs._ Glancing around, he saw the evidence of his second flaming projectile.

Curious, he limped over to see what damage he had caused.

Then he saw the limp form at the base of the tree.

"Halt!" he cried.

Will dropped to his knees beside his mentor. Halt was lying in the mud, unconscious, and his head was bleeding. _He must have hit his head on the tree,_ Will thought. He frowned. What had happened to make Halt hit the tree hard enough to knock him out?

Then he found a second injury and gave a strangled gasp. It all clicked into place.

It looked as if something had taken a shallow scoop out of Halt's side. The material around it was scorched. Apparently the fireball had been blasted toward Halt and hit him so hard that it had lifted him off his feet. The force had slammed Halt into a tree, and then the fireball took a piece of him with it. He noticed absently that the fireball had cauterized the wound as a side effect.

"This is my fault," Will whispered in horror. He'd started out conjuring the fireballs for fun, and this was the result. Halt was injured, and badly, too. Then, for a panicked moment, he didn't hear Halt breathing. He quickly checked his pulse. He sighed in relief. It was weak, but it was there. Will looked a little closer and saw that Halt was indeed still breathing, if a bit too shallowly for Will's liking.

Will didn't know what to do. He had no clue how to deal with an injury like this and didn't think it would be a good idea to move Halt at the moment. The last option, leaving Halt to go get a healer, was out of the question as well; Will wasn't abandoning his mentor for a moment while he was in this state. He had the dreadful feeling that it he did, Halt would be dead by the time he returned with help. And, of course, there was the matter of explaining exactly what had happened. How was he supposed to explain to a healer that his mentor had been hit by a fireball conjured by a Power that wasn't supposed to exist?

A desperate idea occurred to him. _The Powers caused this,_ he thought. _Can they fix it as well?_ Will didn't know, but thought it was worth a shot.

Will reached for the Powers, then hesitated. Which one was he supposed to use? None of them had anything to do with healing. He mentally shrugged. Should he use all of them, perhaps? He tried that, drawing on all six at once. Or was it only one? He noticed that the barriers between the Powers were iffy. Were they parts of a whole or were they distinctly separate? He had no answer.

As the Power flowed into his mind, he noticed something different instantly. There were odd white glows around different things with different brightness... If they were around plants, then they were small; not exactly weak, just soft. There were tiny, brighter glows around flying bugs and the bugs on the trees. A bird taking flight in the trees overhead had a brighter glow than any of them.

He and Halt had them too. His own was so bright that he was surprised he could see it without hurting his eyes. Halt's, however, while still brighter than the bird's, was far dimmer than Will's. And it was fading even as the apprentice watched.

Without even thinking about it, Will, without understanding how he did it, reached out to the glows. He pulled on his own and pushed it toward Halt, not even knowing exactly what he was doing but somehow certain that he had to balance them out. Halt's glow grew steadily more intense while his own became fainter. The glows equalized. And then the balance tipped toward Halt.

Halt's eyes fluttered open as Will's slid closed. The apprentice could still sense the glows through his eyelids. He let go of the Power and, finally, the glows disappeared. A wave of pure exhaustion and weakness washed over him. He fell forward, his face sinking into the mud, and as his mind gave way to blackness he wondered where on earth his strength had gone.

***bounces up and down with excitement* Ooh, what did he do, what did he do? Wait a second, why am I asking you? I already know. ^_^ But you don't! Hee hee hee. Tell me what you thought the glowy stuff was. I'd like to hear what you guys (or girls) think. Oh, and is Halt going to be all right? For that matter, is Will? Hurting those two is/was far too much fun. R & R, pretty please!**

**-Rydd Rider**


	6. Forbidden

**I was definitely not expecting to get another chapter up this fast, especially not one this long, but hey, I got done with it. *shrugs* I seriously won't be updating again for a week and a half, though. -_- Awww…**

**Anyhoo, enjoy!**

**Oh, snapples! I forgot to put this in the last chapter! And the chapter before! *dodges lawyers* Don't sue me! I'm saying it now!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ranger's Apprentice.**

Will's head was pounding. He wasn't quite conscious, but, unfortunately, he was just awake enough to feel the pain throbbing through his skull. What was wrong with him? He groaned. It was a pitiful sound. He woke up a bit more, enough to crack one eye open and see a face hovering over him.

"Halt?" he whispered.

"Will! Finally, you're awake. What exactly happened there?" his mentor asked softly. Will saw that he had a two bandages wrapped around him, one wound tightly around his midsection and the other around his skull.

Will forced his words out. "You… you got hit by the fireball…"

Halt nearly cracked a grin. " Yes, I'm perfectly aware that I got hit by the fireball. That bit was kind of hard to miss. But I'd like to know exactly how I'm up and about with this chunk of me missing and a split in my head while you're feverish from a sprained ankle."

"It wasn't the sprained ankle that knocked me out," Will whispered before fading back into unconsciousness.

Halt stared at the sleeping boy for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall regularly with thankfully even breaths, and wondered what had.

He looked out the window quickly, guessing that it was time for the noon-day meal. He rose from his seat by Will's bed and left to go make lunch.

* * *

When the apprentice awoke a short while later for the second time, Halt wasn't in the room. Will didn't feel much better. His headache was still there and he wasn't sure he would actually be able to stand up. As a test, he slowly raised his body to a sitting position. He felt sudden dizziness but no urge to throw up. He took that as a good sign. He slid his legs off the side on the bed and simply sat for a moment, working up the strength to stand. He still felt far weaker than he thought he should have.

Finally, he got to his feet. The dizziness hit harder than before, and he definitely felt like throwing up now, but he didn't sit back down. It was time to find Halt. He left his room taking slow, steady steps to ensure that he didn't fall over. He didn't want Halt to mother hen him too badly.

He smelled something delicious and rightly assumed that Halt was making a meal—Will didn't know which, as he hadn't the faintest idea how long he had been out. He walked into the kitchen and saw his mentor making stew. He realized that it must be lunch or dinner—whether it was the next day or not, he still wasn't sure. "Halt?" he said timidly.

His mentor turned toward him and raised an eyebrow. "What do you think you're doing out of bed?"

"I feel a whole lot better now," Will lied, hoping his hoarse voice wouldn't be noticed. There was no such luck.

"Yes," Halt said sarcastically, "I can tell your very much better with that sore throat of yours. You look like you're about to fall over. Go back to bed."

"Are you cooking lunch?" Will asked in a sudden change of subject.

"Yes, I am. Now, shoo."

"I don't want to go back to bed yet."

"Well, then you can tell me what happened after you shot that fireball at me," Halt said dryly.

"That was an accident!"

"I did tell you not to practice using the Powers while I wasn't around, did I not?"

"You did," Will admitted reluctantly.

"So it can't properly be called an accident. Either way, what happened after that to knock you out?" he asked.

Will got a strange look on his face. "I don't exactly know."

Halt sighed and turned back to making the stew. "Just tell me what happened, I'll figure out the why."

Will nodded slowly and drew his thoughts together. "Well, I saw where the second fireball went and walked over to see what damage had been done when I saw you. You were just lying there, unconscious. I didn't know what to do. I didn't have any time to get anyone and I wasn't sure how to help you myself. Then I used the Powers somehow. I drew on all of them at the same time and I saw these weird glows everywhere." Will didn't notice Halt stiffen. He continued. "Yours was a lot dimmer than mine and I felt like I had to balance them out, except yours got brighter than mine when I actually tried to—"

"You did _what_?" Halt thundered suddenly, spinning to face his apprentice with fury blazing in his eyes.

Will took and involuntary step backwards, his eyes wide. "I balanced out our glows—"

"Do you know what that did?" Halt yelled.

"It saved your life, didn't it?" Will said in a small voice.

"And in doing so it nearly killed you," he snarled. "That was the seventh Power, Will."

Will was utterly baffled. "Then why is it forbidden?" he asked. "It saves lives!"

"Or takes them, depending on its fancy at the moment. It _is_ life."

"I don't understand," Will said truthfully.

Halt was still furious. "You don't need to. Just know that if you ever try to use it again, _I'll_ kill you if _it_ hasn't already."

Halt stomped angrily out the door, leaving his apprentice to panic in the kitchen and the stew to burn.

* * *

The next few days were torture for Will. It appeared that Halt had calmed down, but Will still had no idea when he was going to start yelling at him again. Halt kept him from training in archery and with his knives while he got better from the sickness that the seventh Power had caused. Instead, Will was learning more about using the Powers. He was incredibly jumpy about it, watching Halt warily if he so much as thought he did something wrong. Will still didn't understand what he had done to make Halt yell at him like that, so he figured that the less he did something that he wasn't supposed to, the less likely Halt would be to get angry.

At the moment, Will was trying to master manipulating his own shadow while only touching a small portion of it. Halt was watching and Will was nervous. How was he supposed to do this again? Oh, right, tug on it and produce a ripple effect that would change the shape of his shadow. Piece o' cake. He suppressed a sigh of frustration. He just couldn't get this.

"Will," Halt said suddenly.

Will started and let go of the Power. "What?"

Halt exhaled sharply. "What's gotten into you? Why are you so jumpy all of the sudden?"

Will looked down. How was he supposed to say the truth in a way that wouldn't sound babyish or stupid? "I don't even understand what I did!" he burst out suddenly. Halt raised an eyebrow.

"You jumped when I said your name and let go of—"

"Not _that_," Will said. "A couple days ago. You know, when I used the seventh Power." Halt face grew stony, but Will wasn't about to stop now. "You started yelling at me and told me not to use it. But I don't even know how I did! I don't want to use it by accident, so I'm a little anxious whenever I use the Power. You said that I didn't need to understand, but I'm thinking it's the other way around. What is the seventh Power? What does it do? How do you use it? How do you _avoid_ using it? Why is it forbidden? I really think I need to know, Halt."

Halt looked at him levelly for a few moments. Will stared back defiantly. At last, Halt sighed.

"Fine," he growled. "Listen up, because I'm only saying this once." Will was instantly all ears. "The six different Powers, if you hadn't noticed already, are really just different parts of a whole. That whole is the seventh Power. It's the Power of life."

"Then isn't it a good Power? Why is it so dangerous?"

Halt glared at Will to silence him before continuing. "It sounds benign. In fact, the Corps thought about renaming it once we figured out how dangerous it was. Then we decided it was a waste of time because no one would be using it anyway. The thing about the Power of life is that it's not only about bringing things _to_ life. It's about life force. Those glows you saw were the life forces of different things. They say plants are dim, bugs are a bit brighter, larger animals are even more so, but people are almost blinding."

"'They say'?" Will quoted. "Haven't you seen it yourself?"

Halt shook his head. "Like I said, it's forbidden. I believe you are the first to use it for about forty years. But anyway, when you balanced out our glows, you were literally taking your life force and putting it into me. It may have saved my life, or I may have survived without it. But the reason you felt so weak is because you were removing your own life. You could easily have killed yourself by accident."

Will's eyes were huge by this point. "Oh," he said softly. "You didn't answer my other question, though."

"And which one was that?" Halt sighed.

"Why is it forbidden?"

"Is that your last question? Because that's going to take a lot of explaining."

"Um, no," Will said. "How do you keep from using it?"

"We just don't use more than three Powers at once. Using any more than that at one time is against the most important rules in the Ranger Corps, as it is dangerously close to using the seventh Power."

"Which is strictly forbidden," Will added. "And that takes us back to my other question: Why?"

Halt paused for a moment. "It wasn't always forbidden. The Corps has been using the Powers since they began, one hundred and fifty years ago. The Power of life was definitely the most powerful—it was all of the Powers combined, after all. Then, in practice, an apprentice killed himself on accident while using it. His mentor died trying to save him using the same Power. The Power of life was strongly discouraged, but that came to be translated as forbidden. That was about thirty years into the history.

"The Rangers who were a part of the Corps before it was forbidden were silent about what the seventh Power did, as they were worried that such a potent Power would tempt others to use it. Within another fifty years, what the seventh Power did was forgotten. The Rangers rediscovered it, unaware that it was dangerous. There were few who could use it properly, though; most just couldn't summon all six Powers as one.

"There were, I believe, three who could use it well. One drew too much of his life force out of himself. He was a third year apprentice at the time. He never lived to receive the silver Oakleaf. The second one gave his life to a loved one a few years after his graduation. The third came to be arguably the greatest Ranger who ever lived. He was positively deadly. He could kill his enemies without any weapons, simply by drawing their life out of them. It was nearly impossible for enemies to keep him captivated as well, because of his abilities. Then, one day, he simply died."

"How?" Will asked.

Halt sighed and looked away. "He pulled the life out of himself. It's still being debated on whether it was an accident or if he had committed suicide."

Will was silent for a moment. "Why would he have committed suicide?"

Halt raised an eyebrow. "Well, he's not exactly around to ask anymore, so I suppose we'll never know. It's possible that he didn't, but there was no evidence that anyone else was there and he was thought by many to be too skilled for it to be an accident." Halt sighed again. "That was forty years ago. Ever since, it's been strictly forbidden. And this time, we're not going to let the Corps forget what we're dealing with."

They lapsed into a long silence.

"So I'll be okay if I don't use more than three Powers at once?" Will asked at length, just to be sure.

Halt nodded. "Yes—well, not exactly. Rangers are hardly ever _completely_ 'okay'," he added. "But you'll be more likely to be fine as long as you follow the rules."

Will nodded, much more satisfied than he had been only a few days before. The seventh Power… it really was dangerous. Luckily, it seemed, no one outside the Ranger Corps could use the Powers. Then he frowned. Could they? When Will was first learning, Halt had said something about people who could use the Powers instinctively. He turned to ask, but Halt was already gone. Will blinked. He hadn't even seen his mentor go. He shrugged mentally. What was the point in asking? No one who knew what the Rangers could do would attack them.

Right?

**Was that last bit obvious enough for you? ^_^ I hope so! 'Cause I'm not spelling it out for you… yet! Maybe in a few chapters…**

**Aww, poor Willers! At the beginning, at least. He got yelled at. *tears* At least Halt was nicer near the end.**

**What's with all these people dying from the seventh Power? O.o**

**Review and make me smile!**

**-Rydd Rider**


	7. Weak and Breaking

**Who knew they had internet here? And that I would have so much left over time in the car?**

**This chapter gets a little bit darker than the others have been. This is also consequentially when the real story line starts! Hm, the two aren't related, are they? ^_^**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ranger's Apprentices**

Halt sipped his coffee contentedly in his favorite chair by the fire. Will was completely healed from the sickness that using the seventh Power had caused and was currently retrieving the whetstone he'd lost in his room. Halt's side still stung, mostly from the herbs he was using to heal it, though he supposed that was the best he could expect after nearly being disemboweled by a fireball. As a whole, however, the effects of the incident with the seventh Power were mostly over with—though not by any means forgotten. Halt couldn't help worrying about his apprentice's use of the Power of life, despite the fact that he'd sworn not to use it again. His greatest fear now for the matter was that Will, with his loyalty and bravery, would use it again and risk his own life if it had even a chance of saving Halt in a bad situation. Halt didn't want that—not for Will, not for any apprentice under his care.

The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up. Halt's sharply honed sixth sense told him that something wasn't right.

He spun instantly towards the door of the cabin, spilling his coffee as he scooped up his longbow and nocked an arrow. The door was open. He hadn't heard the intentionally rusted hinges move when this anonymous enemy had entered—that couldn't be good. And while he was searching for something wrong, he felt it as well. The air around him was strangely thick, almost muting his hearing. He turned quickly, looking, but never finished the entire circle. A sudden burst of absolute, spontaneous weakness hit him as a physical blow. He didn't even have a chance of finding the strength to bring his bow to full draw. A moment later he had weakened further and his knees gave way beneath him.

He simply lay there like some dead animal, stomach down on the floor of the cabin. His cheek was pressed against the rough wooden slats as he concentrated on breathing. It seemed to be all he was capable of with his diminished strength. He barely registered the footsteps coming toward him, no longer muted by the manipulation of the Power of air. The footsteps stopped as the person stood beside him.

"My, my," they said. "I had been told that a Ranger might be a challenge. Honestly, I hoped subduing you would actually be a bit of a struggle. Has the Ranger Corps gotten sloppy?"

Halt would have been having a hard time keeping calm at the stranger's obvious contempt if he had been able to do much more than breathe. Even as it was, however, one fact cut through the haze and made the Ranger's blood run cold: this man had used the Power of air and he was obviously not in the Ranger Corps. And, considering how suddenly weak Halt was, he could also use the seventh Power—and would dare to use on it on a Ranger.

The man kicked Halt in the side, luckily not his injured one, to roll him onto his back. Halt couldn't resist. He examined his attacker's face. He had straight blond hair that nearly came to his shoulders. His mouth was tight and hard and the cobalt eyes were cruel. This man had an obvious air of vengefulness, presumably against Rangers.

He knelt beside the Ranger and unsheathed a knife and brought it towards Halt. The grizzled Ranger felt a flash of something that took him a moment to recognize. It was fear. But the stranger merely cut the strap of Halt's quiver and removed it from his person. He also took the knives from Halt's belt and laid them on the chair near him. Apparently the man had previous knowledge of Ranger weaponry, for he didn't hesitate a moment before taking the strikers as well. Halt, despite the desperate circumstances, couldn't help feeling distinctly humiliated at being brought down and disarmed without so much as a feeble struggle.

Then the worst possible thing that could happen, did.

Will walked into the room.

"Hey, Halt, I finally found my—" He cut off instantly as he took in the scene before him. Halt on the floor, disarmed by an enemy, that same enemy kneeling over Halt. Then the confusion came. Will knew he wasn't deaf; how had he missed the commotion?

Halt forced himself to find the necessary strength to warn his apprentice. "Will…run," he said as forcefully as he could. Unfortunately, it wasn't anywhere near enough to discourage Will.

"Who are you?" he asked the stranger brazenly. "What are you doing here?"

The blond stranger smiled. "My name is Darian. The only reason I'm here is because I was ordered to be. Generally I try to go for a mission with a bit more a challenge." He eyed Halt and nudged him with his foot. "This was far too simple. The Power of earth to get rid of the rust on the hinges—I'm guessing that was there on purpose to alert you—the Power of air to mute the sounds I might make, and the seventh Power to neutralize the target. How much easier can it get?"

Will swallowed. This man could use the Powers, even the seventh one. And he was the enemy. Though maybe if Will acted quickly enough…

Will yanked his throwing knife out of its sheath, grateful that he hadn't yet removed the sheath from his belt, and moved to throw it at Darian. He looked amused as Will felt the same crippling weakness that Halt had experienced only a short time before. The knife and the boy both fell to the ground, one clattering and the other making a dull thud. Will would have cried out, but lacked the strength. He recognized the feeling from when he had tried to balance out his and Halt's life forces a little under two weeks before. Part of his life had just been taken from him.

Damian crossed the room to the fallen boy. He checked around his neck and found what he was looking for. A thin chain supporting a bronze Oakleaf. He ripped the pendant from Will's neck and tossed it to the side.

"I highly doubt you'll be needing that anymore," he said snidely. "Last I heard, they didn't allow corpses to be apprentices."

"Don't you dare," Halt snarled. "If you hurt him I'll—"

Darian sighed, sarcastically patient. "That's the problem. You can't do anything. I'm in control here. I'm supposed to be bringing a Ranger back to my master's base, not a scrawny boy. And I can't very well leave any witnesses, now, can I?" He chuckled darkly. "Plus, this is bringing a chance I didn't expect: break the Ranger who's caused those I sympathize with so much grief. I didn't think there would be anything to make you crack, Halt, but your apprentice here brings a delicious opportunity." He smirked with something like sick enjoyment flickering in his eyes.

"No!" Halt was surprised to feel some strength return to his limbs. He lunged for the knife that Darian had placed on the chair foolishly close to Halt. He tried to spin around and throw, but once again his strength was drained. Darian lazily walked over and plucked the knife from Halt's hand. Halt realized with a furious pang of helplessness that Darian was toying with him.

"It's so very amusing to watch people struggle toward something that they can't control," he sneered. "Just like this. Your apprentice is going to die, but I'm still debating whether it will be by this knife or by getting his life drained. Any preferences, _Will_?" he teased.

Will was barely conscious. Darian was pulling on his life more than he was on Halt's at the moment. The boy was far paler than he should have been at any given time and Halt doubted that he had even heard the mocking question. It seemed even less likely that he would answer; not surprisingly, he didn't.

"Please, don't," Halt said, hating to beg to this despicable person but willing to for the boy that had brought a new kind of light to his life in the past year. "Kill me, but don't hurt the boy."

Darian grinned slightly, this comment causing as much amusement as the ones before apparently had. "I'd kill both of you gladly, but I need _you_ alive. The boy, however…" He let the ominous sentence hang in the air as he knelt by Will's limp form and brushed the hair away from his face with the point of the knife, not breaking the skin. Pausing, he contemplated for a moment, then tossed the knife aside.

"I'll just drain him," he decided, enjoying the panic that flooded the Ranger's eyes. "I may need the extra bit of life later, after all. I'll be picking up quite a few Rangers and I've heard you're a feisty bunch. Though if they're all pushovers like you than Will's life force probably won't be necessary. Pays to be careful, though," he smirked, walking over to where Will lay with his eyes closed.

Darian stared at Will for a moment, then the boy suddenly jerked awake, bolting up into a sitting position. He looked around in confusion. "What—" his eyes landed on Darian and he seemed to remember. "Oh," he said softly, his tone saturated with fear.

Darian grinned evilly, putting his foot on Will's chest and shoving him back down. "Any last words before you die, Will?"

The apprentice's eyes slid toward his mentor. Their eyes met. _I'm sorry, Will_, Halt mouthed.

"Halt," Will whispered. "It's not your fault." He didn't want his mentor to feel guilty for what he couldn't control. As he spoke, however, he couldn't keep the terror and fear of death from his voice, despite him trying, and it pained his mentor to hear it.

Darian rolled his eyes in disgust. "The sappy Ranger way of saying you're giving up. Which you're right to, of course." He glanced back at Will, looking almost bored, and Will's eyes slid closed, his entire body going instantly limp.

"No! Will, no!" Halt yelled it as loud as he could in his weakened state. It just didn't seem real. Will was his apprentice. This was just a normal day of training and he'd fallen asleep to a nightmare, it must just be that. Will wasn't dead. He just couldn't be.

Darian pulled just enough life out of Halt that he would become unconscious. While Darian considered it fun to watch the taciturn man's distress, he would make transport difficult if he were awake. He walked over to the door and opened it, the hinges still making no sound as he had removed the rust.

"Men." He didn't have to say it loud; the group assigned to him would be within easy earshot. Five of his twenty came over. There wasn't a need to have twenty men with Darian for only one Ranger; instead, they would be abducting several of them.

Darian ordered one of them to pick up the unconscious Ranger and tie him up. While Darian watched, another man came up to him.

"Sir, what about the boy?"

Darian glanced over carelessly to see who he was talking about. His eyes lighted on Will's body and his lips twitched into a smile once more. "That is just a corpse," he told the soldier. "We'll leave him to burn with the house." The man nodded, unquestioning.

They tied Halt to a horse and prepared to move out. Darian sent them marching ahead of them and, trained in absolute obedience as they were, the soldiers followed their orders.

Darian stared at the quaint little home for a while longer. A mere cabin, with only two bedrooms, a washroom, a kitchen, and a living room. There also seemed to be a stable out back for the horses. Darian wasn't admiring the small home. Instead, he sparked, then blew a puff of air at the flame. Instead of going out, it zoomed directly toward the spot of especially dry wood that he thought would burn rather well.

The wood caught fire.

Repeating the action a dozen more times, Darian smiled slightly at the potential blazing inferno before him. The body would burn as well in the fire, and none would know that the apprentice was dead. They would probably figure out that Halt had been captured or something of the sort, but that didn't worry Darian at all. He heard whinnying. He closed his eyes briefly in irritation. The Ranger horses were still in the stables.

Then he sighed and mentally shrugged. Why should he care about a few furry mounts? Their masters were already beyond saving. Why shouldn't they be too? He turned and walked to his own horse while contemplating which fief they would hit next on their quest for captive Rangers.

* * *

The body appeared suddenly, materializing straight out of the wood on the floor of the burning house. It was male, with medium-long brown hair and a warrior's bulk. He opened his eyes and they were brown.

Quickly, he rose, knowing he had to complete his task fast to avoid the hungry tongues of fire. He reached the un-breathing corpse of the boy he was searching for. Will. He automatically brushed the hair out of the boy's eyes, but he had to force himself not to recoil as his own warm fingers brushed the ominously cool forehead._ He won't be cool for long if I don't get him out of this burning building, _he thought. He hoisted the corpse into his arms. Lucky for him, it was light. Glancing around frantically, he looked for a way out, knowing he couldn't go the same way he'd come in. His eyes landed on a window.

Without so much as a second thought, the man jumped and hit the window with his shoulder, shattering the glass. He tumbled onto the forest floor outside the cabin and got to his feet. Adjusting the way he was holding Will, he carried the body to an indentation in the ground at the foot of a tree, near the roots. He left no footsteps behind him.

The man suppressed a curse when he saw that the hole wasn't big enough for the body. Moving briskly, he knelt and reached for the Power of earth, making the dirt less dense and not as firmly packed. The reduced density of the dirt made it much easier to shovel the soil with his hands to make the hole bigger.

Carefully, he put Will's lifeless corpse into the hole. It almost looked like he was being laid in a shallow grave, but that was not the purpose of this. The purpose was to hide him. The man spread dead leaves, pine needles, a few branches and dirt over the body. The kind of things that would not be out of place on the forest floor.

He looked at the spot for a moment, memorizing exactly where the corpse was buried. He didn't cry, even though he cared for the boy. He stared for what seemed like eternity but was only a few seconds at where Will's head rested under the debris.

He stood there motionless, then listened as he heard something. His eyes widened as he realized it was the frantic neighs of the two Ranger horses. He'd forgotten that they were still inside the stables.

The man raced back towards the Ranger's burning cabin, opening the door to the stables with a bang. Both mounts, one a horse and one a pony, looked toward him with what he could have sworn was relief. He whistled to them, and they obediently bolted out of the burning structure. He ran out after them. Gripping both of their reigns, he firmly led them toward where he'd put Will. While the pony, which he assumed was Will's horse, followed willingly, the larger horse strained toward where Halt had been taken. The man struggled to remember the words that would make the horse obey him.

"_Permetez moi,_" he said into the horse's ear. He stopped straining and followed him.

As they walked back to the place he had laid Will, the man made sure to blot out their tracks using the Power of earth. It was quite handy when it came to things like this—pity the Rangers didn't use it much. The pony stepped straight up to the exact spot where the debris covered Will, nose to the ground. The pony stopped and lifted his head high, letting out a shrill, piercing whinny and announcing his grief for his master to the world.

The man nearly had a heart attack. "Shut up!" he growled, but the pony paid him no heed. He walked forward and whispered in the animal's ear, "Will you allow me? Silent!"

The pony obeyed only because of the pass phrase, looking somewhat disgruntled. The man blinked. These Ranger horses were intelligent, he knew, but this wasn't what he had expected. He turned toward the horse, Halt's mount. "Silent." He thanked his lucky stars that the horses were well trained. Under the silent command, they would stay quiet and freeze if anyone came near.

He knelt in the dirt beside where he had hastily covered Will's body. He was glad he didn't have to look at the corpse itself; he'd always hated the waxy pallor of dead people. Which was ironic, when he thought about it; he tried not to at times like this. He placed his hands above where his face would be and looked down in sadness for a moment.

"When a hero falls is when a hero rises," he whispered to the corpse. "Araluen still has hope yet."

He rose and walked a short distance away and sat with his back against the trunk of a tree. His mission was finished. He relaxed and let the life flow out of his body. He slumped, lifeless, against the rough bark.

***sniffle sniffle* Aww... I can't believe I just did that. I killed off Willers... It makes me feel so mean... But I really had to do it! Or else I wouldn't have!**

**Review please!**

**-Rydd Rider**


	8. Trackers and Captives

**This is the same night as the last chapter, a couple hours later. Just to make that clear.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Ranger's Apprentice.**

Gilan grinned at the prospect of seeing Halt and Will again. He was riding toward their cabin to recruit Will for a mission to Celtica. He was sure that the energetic apprentice would be happy to do that, as long as he thought Halt wouldn't mind—which, of course, he wouldn't.

He was only about half and hour's ride away now. Suddenly impatient to get there, he urged Blaze into a gallop. The wind whipped his hair and he grinned broadly. He leaned forward a bit, into the shape of Blaze's neck, and the wind ripped his cowl back. The night air was cold, but he was content with the knowledge he would be somewhere warm soon.

A short while later he broke through the trees into the clearing where Halt's cabin stood. Or, he should say, _once_ stood. Now there was only a large area of charred, broken wood and glowing embers, still spurting small flames.

Gilan tugged sharply on the reigns and brought Blaze to an immediate stop. He stared at the scene in horror. What had happened here? Where were Halt and Will, and Tug and Abelard? Hadn't anyone tried to put out the fire? He realized that someone at the castle had to be told and he was the only one to do it. And while he was reluctant to leave, he admitted to himself that there was nothing he could do here.

He turned Blaze in the direction of Redmont castle and bolted off into the night.

* * *

Gilan rapped his fist on the Baron's door several times. He heard Baron Arald's cheerful voice invite him in and he quickly entered.

Arald's face showed surprise as he saw Gilan. "Gilan? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Halt, my lord," he responded.

The baron nodded. "Then why are you up in the castle? He's down in his cabin." But Gilan was already shaking his head.

"He's not there, I should think. The entire cabin has been burned to the ground."

Baron Arald started. "What? Burned to the ground? Why wasn't it put out? How did it happen?"

Gilan couldn't help but remember Will's frequent questions. The thought didn't bring a grin to his face, however, and he knew that it wouldn't until he knew where the boy and his mentor were. He answered the baron's questions to the best of his ability. "It's been completely burned to the ground. Just burnt wood and embers left. I came to ask you why it wasn't put out—I only just got here. I don't have the faintest clue how it happened, my lord."

Arald nodded and slumped backwards into his chair, a perplexed expression on his face. "Where's Halt and Will?"

Gilan shook his head hopelessly. "I wish I knew. They weren't around the cabin, apparently they didn't come here, and I sincerely hope that they weren't in the cabin. If they were…" He let the sentence hang. Both he and the baron knew what he meant, but neither dared to voice the statement.

A long, awkward silence followed. Arald was the one who broke it. "Right," he said, rubbing his hands together, "There's not much we can do for the cabin now, so we'll just leave it as is. Tomorrow, I'll guess that you'll be wanting to look for were Halt and Will went?"

Gilan nodded. "Yes, my lord. I'd like very much to ask them what's going on here. Something tells me that this wasn't an accident. They would have been able to come if it had been."

"I agree with you. Even a Ranger can't track in the dark, however, so you might as well get some sleep for now. Does that sound alright with you?" Arald asked.

Wearily, Gilan agreed. "I'll be up and tracking early tomorrow morning. I'll tell you what I find, my lord."

"Good. I'd like to hear it. I believe that Crowley might be interested as well, won't he?"

"I'll send him a report if I find anything." He paused. "Or if I don't," he added softly.

* * *

Gilan crouched, getting closer to the tracks he was following. The people who had made them were good at hiding them; he could barely find the tracks.

From what he'd found so far, Gilan was fairly sure that this was a large group of horse men. Their trail had been fresh and had led straight from where the cabin used to be, so he thought that these were the people who had destroyed it with the fire. He also had the uncomfortable suspicion that they'd captured Halt and Will as well.

He saw another indicator of direction and moved on. It went on for nearly three hours, him looking fiercely for each footprint and broken branch, all of it heading in the same direction, and then it was over.

The trail had disappeared.

He thought for a moment that he had simply followed a false trail that had stopped, but as he attempted to backtrack, those tracks were gone too. He stared for a moment, then began looking all the harder. There were no tracks to be found.

He slumped against the trunk of a tree, heaving a sigh. Halt, Will, both gone, to somewhere he couldn't follow. And even worse, something had made the very tracks he was following disappear. He scanned the area one more time, looking for something that he might have missed. There was an oddly shaped shadow, but that was all there was. Then he looked back, comparing the shadow to the angle of the sun and the trees overhead. They didn't match. He stepped forward hopefully, looking for something in the shadow. It didn't seem to be anything specific. It was just a rounded shape, with inconsistencies inside it. Then he did a double take. He could have sworn that it was an image of a face, leering at him. Unnerved, he took a step back.

He was sure that this hadn't been laid down by a Ranger. That thought alone made him swallow. Someone had taken Halt and Will, and they could use the Powers themselves. The cabin must have been burned by the Power of fire. And who knew what Power they had used to actually capture the grizzled Ranger and his apprentice?

With nothing to show for the morning's work but the creepy image of the leering shadow face imprinted in his mind, Gilan trudged back to Castle Redmont.

* * *

Halt woke slowly, his head throbbing. He kept his eyes closed, content to listen and feel to find out where he was.

There was a rhythmic thumping beneath him, and he was lurching along with it, folded over on his stomach. He was on a horse. His wrists were tied, as were his ankles, and he didn't feel the weight of his quiver, knives, or any of his weapons. He still had his cloak, though, and the cowl had flopped over his head. He finally tried opening his eyes, but found them blindfolded.

He pieced together exactly what had happened from what he remembered: Darian coming into the cabin undetected, he, Halt, being defeated and disarmed, Will coming in and, last and most painful, Will dying. Though he fought against them valiantly, Halt still felt hot tears pricking the corners of his eyes. He couldn't be weak, not now.

The horse lurched unexpectedly and the horn of the saddle dug into his side painfully. He grunted.

"Stop," a voice ordered. Halt's heart plummeted and he felt the familiar rise of anger as he recognized Darian's voice. "I believe our prisoner is awake."

The man directing Halt's horse stopped obediently. The Ranger heard footsteps approaching and felt a hand grip his collar, yanking him roughly off the horse and throwing him to the ground. With difficulty, he suppressed another groan.

"At least you seem a little more obedient this time than before," Darian said. "That, or you just don't see a way to resist. I'm betting on the latter."

Darian looked to the man who had been carrying Halt on his horse. "Remove the Ranger's cloak, and his Oakleaf. But remember we'll need them later; don't damage either. I don't care about the Ranger."

"I've got a name, you know," Halt growled.

Darian gave a soft laugh as he turned back toward him. "Yes, you do. Halt. The legendary Ranger, captured and then heartbroken because your little apprentice was killed." Halt strained against his bonds at the words and as the man took his cloak and Oakleaf, but couldn't break free. "I don't see why you cared for the boy," Darian continued cruelly. "He was such a scrawny little thing. Before he was burned with the house, at least."

What the statement implied brought Halt from angry to positively furious. "Not only do you kidnap me, take what shows me to be a Ranger, _murder my apprentice,_ but you burn the body of a brave soul with my house as well," he snarled. "I'd say you've already done your fair share of harm. Just stop whatever harebrained scheme you've got going—no one else should have to suffer from you. And you have to remember that I'm not the only Ranger in Araluen."

Darian laughed once more. "It's not my harebrained scheme, Halt, it's my master's. And I'm afraid that a good many more people will suffer from me. My days of fun are not quite over."

If Halt had still been possession of his knives, Darian would have had something to fear. He was downright murderous. "Fun?" he asked, his voice dangerously soft. "You call murdering innocent people and torturing other's _fun_?" By the end of the sentence, Halt was shouting.

Darian leered. "Yes. I'm completely insane, after all." He said it so calmly that Halt had no retort. "After what you did to my brother," Darian added in a snarl.

Halt was thrown. "Your brother?" he asked.

"Yes. He was _going_ to be a Ranger's apprentice. But he didn't exactly like the idea of sorcerers. Then you Rangers hunted him down and killed him."

He remembered the only apprentice that the Corps had ever been forced to take such drastic measures too. Just their luck that that one apprentice had a psychotic brother. "We had to," Halt replied through gritted teeth. "He was exposing secrets of the Corps that weren't meant to be exposed. We gave him a chance and he threw it away." Then something occurred to him. "If your brother was a Ranger's apprentice and you were apparently so devastated that he died, why did you kill Will?"

"You killed an apprentice, so I figured that I might as well too."

The answer was hardly an answer at all. Halt realized that Darian probably hadn't been kidding when he'd said that he was completely insane. He didn't need real reasons for what he did—just something that would justify his actions to himself.

"Who's this master you keep talking about?"

Darian smirked. "Oh, you know him. He's an old enemy of yours. An old enemy of the country, in fact. Morgarath, the Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, former Baron of Gorlan Fief."

"So he _is_ back," Halt whispered.

Darian seemed to grow bored. Halt felt the strength drain from his immobile limbs and knew instantly that Darian was using the seventh Power. He didn't have enough time to form another comprehensible thought before he faded out of consciousness.

* * *

In a monotone place of white, Will opened his eyes.

**Did anyone see that last line coming? *looks around* Hm. No one's here to raise their hands. So review instead!**

**I'll update as often as I can, but I'm balancing two stories right now and I might start a third, though not for the Ranger's Apprentice fandom. Yeah. Anyway. Um… Review!**

**-Rydd Rider**


	9. Oddly Placed Introductions

**I'm introducing an OC this chapter, but I promise that she won't be in there too much. I just realized that either I had to use an OC or Alyss, and I didn't want to use Alyss. I'm not shipping the OC with Will, though. ^_^ Mary-Sue haters can relax and enjoy.**

**Oops, I forgot. This chapter is about a week later. Or, more correctly, it's right after Will opened his eyes in the last chapter, which was really about a week after the other events in the chapter. The little Celtic expecition has left without Will but still with three members, because this is Celtica we're talking about. Anyhoo, hope that wasn't too confuzzling O_o Sorry if it was.**

Will didn't understand what he was seeing. He was dead, wasn't he? Yet he could still feel. He wasn't sure he could see, but there was white all around him. Or was that what color the world was when you were blind? He didn't have the faintest idea.

"Will?"

He spun to face the owner of the voice. He saw that it was a man with messy brown hair and brown eyes—apparently Will wasn't blind after all. Will had the nagging suspicion that he'd seen the man before, but banished the thought.

"Who are you?" Will asked.

"I am the man who saved your body from burning in the fire."

Will gave him a befuddled look. "What fire?" he asked. "What do you mean, 'my body'? Or am I…" he trailed off.

"You're dead, Will," he said in a flat voice. "This is, for lack of a better word, the afterlife."

Will stared at him for a moment, then turned and sat down heavily. "No, oh no," he murmured softly, shaking his head.

The man raised an eyebrow. "What's so terrible?"

The look on Will's face as he glanced over his shoulder was nearly identical to the one Halt used when Will had done or asked something incredibly stupid. "Well, for one, I'm _dead_. Last time I checked, that was _not_ a good thing. And the man who I think killed me said he needed Halt, for some reason. Halt must have been captured."

The man nodded. "That he was. The same man has also decided to go traipsing off around Araluen and has captured another Ranger. He's kidnapping a third at the moment, I believe. Heaven knows what he plans to do with the men."

Will eyed him thoughtfully and said slowly, "But this is heaven, isn't it?"

A wide grin spread across the man's face. "Exactly. We, well, mostly I, have been watching Morgarath and his minions for a long while. We're pretty sure we know what they're up to." He turned to go.

"What are they planning?" Will asked him as he walked away.

The man didn't seem to hear him. "Will, stay here, I'll be back later. For no I've got some business to attend to." Almost before the last word was out of his mouth, he vanished.

Will had seen too many inconceivable things in the past short while to be surprised at the man's disappearance. "Why would I leave?" he grumbled to himself. "It's not like I've got anywhere to go."

Only then did he realize that he still didn't know the man's name.

* * *

Not long after, the man stood outside a camp. He was behind a tree, looking at the guards. There were two Rangers being held captive in this camp. The head of this treasonous operation, who he believed was called Darian, was currently dragging a third Ranger to camp—the two already here would need to be freed quickly.

He looked across the camp to a guard on the opposite side. Reaching for the seventh Power, he firmly yanked the life out of the guard. As the life flowed to the man, he siphoned it off to the simpler life, the plants, bugs, mice and such, as was required of the rules he'd always followed. Only one life could be in a body at a time—it was a rule that this Darian had either never heard or simply disregarded. One more reason for Darian to be hunted down and killed.

The body fell to the ground with a dull thud. Several other guards heard it, and within moments, the entire camp was armed and facing the direction they assumed the attack had come from. Consequentially, this was the exact opposite side of where the real danger was, just as the man had planned. He moved silently behind the mistaken guards, heading toward the tent that he knew hosted the Rangers. Glancing back and seeing that the soldiers were preoccupied trying to discern the cause of the guard's death, he pushed aside the canvas covering the tent's entrance and slipped inside.

The two Rangers were on their stomachs on the floor, unconscious. Darian hadn't taken chances while he was gone and had tied them up with several complicated knots, but they weren't anything that a good knife couldn't cut through.

The man looked down at them with a frown. He wouldn't be able to get out of here unscathed while carrying two unconscious Rangers. Maybe if he woke them up, or if there wasn't anyone chasing them, he would have a better chance. He grinned. Why not both? Making a little dent in Darian's miniature army here might prove to be a good thing in the long run. And that much life would be guaranteed to give those Rangers a jumpstart.

He pulled firmly on the lives of the remaining twenty-two men. Every one of them dropped to the ground instantly, dead. Instead of bringing the lives directly to him, he let them flow through the Rangers first. The two men on the ground jolted suddenly, gasping at their rude awakening. The man let the remaining life forces flow through him and into the forest.

Leaning down, he used the Power of earth to harden his blade and soften the ropes and cut the bindings on Halt's wrists and ankles with two swift movements, rather than taking the time to saw through them normally. His time for being inconspicuous with his abilities had passed with the safety of Araluen.

The Ranger rolled over onto his back, eyeing his liberator warily. He usually would have already had a knife to the man's throat, just in case, but Darian had long since disarmed him. He could only hope that this person who had freed him had good intentions. Though he supposed, since he felt so much stronger so suddenly, he might be able to overpower the man anyway. He sighed mentally. He sincerely hoped that this wasn't another one of Darian's mind games he used to screw with his prisoners, few they may be at the moment. The doubt vanished, however, when Halt realized that he had seen this man before him a long time ago, and he couldn't believe that he was here.

"Wait a moment, you're dead," Halt said cautiously.

The man smiled as he cut Crowley's bonds. "That's a rather blunt way of putting it."

The grizzled Ranger shrugged as he stood. "I thought it was true. I could have sworn that I saw you die, but you're obviously alive and well."

The man barked a laugh. "Oh, you saw me die, alright, you just completely mistook the cause for my death. You thought I bled to death, correct?"

"Something along those lines," Halt agreed, still not knowing where this conversation was going.

"Actually, I guess you could say I committed suicide."

Halt raised his eyebrows. "You could call jumping in front of those brutish monsters committing suicide, I suppose. Though that doesn't change the fact that you should be dead."

The man stared at him flatly. "For a Ranger, you sure are idiotic. If you want, though, I'll just attribute that to a lack of proper information."

"Would you mind enlightening me with this 'proper information' then?" Halt retorted icily.

The man lifted his hand and sparked, showing Halt his ability to use the Powers. "I drained my life. Fortunately, the seventh Power has an odd habit of returning what it takes." Halt's eyes grew slightly wider at the words as he realized what was being implied. "In fact, Will has a chance of returning as well."

"Returning from where?" Crowley had chosen that moment to enter the conversation. "Where's the boy got to this time?"

Halt looked away, unwilling to answer and hoping that the Corps Commandant wouldn't notice his moistening eyes. It was the anonymous man who answered.

"He's gotten himself to the afterlife. He died nearly a week ago."

Crowley's eyes grew wide. He turned toward his old time friend. "Halt, how did that happen? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Darian drained the life out of him," Halt responded gruffly, using the rough tone to disguise the catch in his voice. He didn't answer Crowley's second question; he himself didn't know how he would reply to that one. Perhaps because he wanted to forget? Because he didn't want to think about it? Neither of these reasons seemed fair. The boy had deserved to be remembered.

"He can still come back, you know," the man told him softly, sensing the graying Ranger's sadness. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Halt shook his head. "I'd rather not get my hopes up. This could easily just be a dream."

Another question struck Crowley. "You two seem to know each other, but I'm afraid I haven't met this man yet. Who are you?"

The man smiled and firmly reached out a strong hand that Crowley gingerly took. "My name is Daniel," he told the Commandant. "I'm Will's father."

* * *

Gilan glanced at the two bandits, Bart and Carney, who had tried to sneak into their camp while he was investigating the empty town of Gwyntaleth. Horace, luckily, had deflected them easily. Bart was out cold and Carney was trying to swallow nervously without having his Adam's apple cut out by the saxe knife that Gilan was holding to his throat. The Ranger glanced briefly back at Rhiannon, an apprentice courier who had taken the place of Will as the third member of the expedition, and Horace, who was looking at a grubby piece of parchment that they'd found in Carney's belt pouch.

"It's a map," the young warrior announced. "Leading to their loot, by the looks of it.

"Throw it away, then," Gilan told Horace. "Without it, they won't likely find their plunder again."

Nodding, Horace threw the piece of parchment into the small dinner fire they'd started, ignoring Carney's vehement protests. "But that's ours!" the bandit exclaimed. He was about to continue when he saw the dangerous glint in Gilan's eyes.

Gilan gave him a venomous look. He didn't like bandits much. "You stole it. It's not yours, it's theirs. Or their family's, if they're still alive."

"They're still alive," someone said behind them. "They've run from Morgarath—those he hasn't already captured."

**Yes, I know you already know who the new person is, so it's not really much of a cliffy. I was going to go on, but I just wanted to post this chapter since it's been a while. I was at a camp for several days and then my jump-drive - that had EVERYTHING I wrote on it - literally snapped in two, so I had to retype what I'd already written for this chapter. ^_^**

**Updates are going to be a whole lot less frequent than they've been in the past, what with school starting and all, but I'll try to update at least ONE story at least once a week. Hopefully more, but that's the best I can actually promise. ^?^**

**R&R... Do I actually need to say it? Pretty please review.**

**-Rydd Rider**


	10. Cut Short

**Yes, I know, TWO MONTHS, I'm ridiculous. I figured out what was giving me writer's block, though, and I deleted that part. So I should be good, but I'm not making any more promises since I don't want to break anymore. ^_^ I had to reread this entire story before I could finish typing this, it's been so long.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own it. (Who invented these things, anyway? They're really annoying!)**

Crowley's jaw dropped. "Will's _father_?" he asked incredulously. He glanced at Halt. "I thought the boy was an orphan."

"Hence the entire last conversation debating whether he,"—Halt jerked a finger at Daniel—"was dead or not," the grizzled Ranger pointed out. "If you haven't noticed, he was certainly _thought_ to have died."

"I _did_ die," Daniel said firmly, "but I am—obviously—no longer dead. Will's not an orphan anymore."

"Is that last part relevant?" Crowley ventured. "He's dead too, right?"

Halt looked like he was going to respond with a sharp retort, but he just turned his head slightly away from his commandant. Crowley realized why and berated himself for saying anything. Halt probably blamed himself for Will's death, even though there hadn't been anything he could do.

"Death isn't what you think it is," Daniel said to the grizzled Ranger softly. "Neither is the seventh Power."

"The seventh Power as in life?" Crowley asked. "That's been outlawed for ages."

Daniel sighed. "You can't _outlaw_ life. And outlawing the manipulation of it doesn't work too well either. You get the fools like Darian messing with what they want when they want, and then you have the Rangers who don't know the push from the pull because they actually paid attention to the laws. Well, unless you're like Will and end up nearly killing yourself by accident."

"Wait, what?" Crowley said, only really catching the last bit. "Will nearly—"

Daniel completely ignored him and kept talking. "The Rangers must accept the seventh Power again. Not using it isn't going to stop others from using it too. You need to know how to control it."

"We don't need it," Halt growled. "We've done without, we can do it again. We like our friends and apprentices alive, thanks."

Daniel looked between Crowley and Halt briefly. "Your duty as a Ranger is to protect this kingdom. You took that oath when you received the Oakleaf. You can't protect it while your enemies know what you don't." He opened his mouth, then glanced around the tent. "Speaking of enemies, we had best get out of this camp before Darian comes back. I'll explain a bit more as we leave."

They moved from the tent and Halt blinked while Crowley whistled. "You killed all of them," the commandant said softly.

"Yes, that's the kind of thing you can do with the seventh Power." Daniel looked back at them briefly as they walked seemingly unhurriedly out of the lifeless camp. "Anyway, since you don't know how to do what Darian apparently does, namely the seventh Power, it appears that I will have to teach you." He grinned in a boyish way that reminded Halt painfully of Will. "Who'd have thought that I'd ever mentor two Rangers?"

Needless to say, the two Rangers in question didn't take well to the last remark.

* * *

Gilan was surprised to see how much the girl who had spoken looked like a boy. In fact, he would have thought she was one if she had stayed silent, but her soft voice was definitely female. She stood at the edge of the campsite with her thin, ragged clothes hanging on her slender frame and her blond hair cut short. The poor girl seemed half dead on her feet—_or maybe more than half,_ Gilan thought. She was swaying with exhaustion and was no doubt close to passing out.

"Where did you come from?" Gilan asked her. He sheathed his saxe knife and stepped away from Carney, letting the bandit fall to the ground. He seemed perfectly content to stay there, out of reach of the Ranger's blade.

"I…" She paused uncertainly, swaying once more. "The hills. I've been hiding for weeks," she said. She seemed nearly too tired for words.

"What's your name?" Gilan asked her softly, well aware that she was terribly worn out.

"Evanlyn Wheeler," she replied quietly. "From Greenfield Fief." She paused for a moment, thinking of what to say. "My mistress was visiting friends here in Celtica when the Wargals attacked," she began, but got no further.

"Wargals!" Horace exclaimed. "What were Wargals doing here?"

Evanlyn gave a small lift of her shoulders, barely even glancing at him with her brilliant green eyes. "I have no idea. But yes, Wargals. They attacked my lady and I, along with our escort." She seemed to tremble a little before she continued. "I was the only one who… who survived." She seemed to give up trying to keep herself in control, and put her hands to her face as her shoulders started to shake. She began to fall.

Gilan caught her before she hit the ground. He lowered Evanlyn to the ground softly, creating a makeshift pillow for her out of a nearby bedroll that Horace and Rhiannon had laid out when they set up camp.

"Horace, go tie up the bandits," Gilan ordered. "Rhiannon, get the supplies out for cooking and I'll start the fire."

Rhiannon knelt near Gilan when she returned with the cooking supplies. "What are we going to do about Evanlyn and those Wargals? And those two bandits, Carney and that other bloke?"

Gilan shrugged. "We'll decide what to do with them in due time. We still need to hear whatever Evanlyn has to say about the Wargal attack. I think we'll end up doing something nasty to those robbers. It may or may not be lethal, I'll decide later." His offhanded comments on the bandits' fate made Rhiannon grin. However, his next comment wiped the grin off her face and made her groan. "Rhiannon, why don't you make the meal tonight?" She really wasn't all that great a cook. But Gilan was in charge of their little expedition.

"If you say so, Gilan."

As she turned to get the cooking supplies, she didn't see Gilan spark with the Power of fire rather than using his flint and steel.

* * *

Daniel leaned on a tree and looked at the two Rangers with a critical eye. His former joviality was now gone, replaced by a down-to-earth tone that perhaps helped the Rangers grasp the situation, absurd as it was.

"You're not apprentices," Daniel said. "You're skilled, mostly capable of defending yourselves, and there's not much I know about things that concern you that you don't already. I'm not going to treat you like any of that isn't true. I'm not going to make you memorize useless terms or teach you only the basics. But I do need you to listen and, when it comes to the seventh Power, I will need obedience. Don't take this lightly; you were right on one account. The Power of life is dangerous. But only when misused."

Daniel paused, looking to Halt and Crowley, waiting a moment for a question. Neither said anything. Crowley watched with anticipation and curiosity while Halt stared at Daniel, reluctant but yet determined.

"Get on with it," Crowley prompted.

Daniel opened his mouth but was interrupted by a small creature flying in and clinging to his shirt, growling angrily.

"What is that?" Halt asked with interest.

With honesty, Daniel himself didn't yet know. He pinched the creature's scaly tail and held it up to for a better viewing. It had a scaly, sinewy black body with stubby little legs ending in claws. Its long neck ended in a head topped with red horns and red eyes peeped angrily at Daniel. Four insect wings, much like a dragonfly's, were attached to its back. The creature hissed its displeasure, exposing tiny white, needle-sharp fangs and sending a lick of fire in an assault. Daniel grinned. Someone definitely wasn't happy with him leaving so suddenly, probably Magnus, often called Magma, by the make of the creature. Lots of fire. The creature went up in smoke, disintegrating to ashes, and Daniel winced as it singed his hand.

"What was that?" Halt repeated.

"A dragonfly," Daniel said nonchalantly. "Emphasis on the _dragon._"

Halt snorted. Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Unfortunately, that was a message. I should really be somewhere else right now, and someone's very unhappy that I'm not. And so they sent that little creature to tell me that."

"So you're leaving before you can tell us anything about the seventh Power?" Crowley said.

"Looks like it." Daniel sat down and leaned on the tree's trunk, closing his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Halt asked curiously.

"Killing myself," he replied casually. And before either Ranger could protest, he went limp. Terrible timing, as it happened.

"What do you two Rangers think you're doing, running along where you could yet hurt?" came the sardonic tones of Darian.

**Ooh, I'm evil. I actually only came up with that line just I was typing it, so even I don't have a clue as to what's going to happen next. Looks like I get to wait in suspense with the rest of you guys... ^_^**

**ANYhoo, what did you think? And you know what that question really means… Review!**

**-Rydd Rider**


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